Central Region Venturing Newsletter - the Central Point - May 2014

The Central Point Newsletter of Central Region Venturing | BSA May Newsletter 2014

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Scouting 500 Ever wonder what it would be like to camp out at a Speedway? How about with 12,000-15,000 other Boy Scouts and Venturers? Well some people are about to find out on May 16th-18th. The Heart of America Council in Kansas City have decided to host the first Scouting 500. This is the first time a council has hosted something this size and at a speedway no less! There will be many programs available for those attending, including emergency preparedness, zip lining, scuba, and many more. If you are interested in serving the community, there will be various service projects available, including the featured project for Habitat for Humanity. What fun would camping at a Speedway be without motor sports? Participants will have the opportunity to get behind the wheel of a high performance go cart! Finally, for those interested in STEM, participants will be able to complete Garmin Geocaching, as well as play with remote control helicopters! But the program won’t be the only thing people talk about, there will be some special guests who will spend the weekend with us including Lord Baden-Powell’s Granddaughter, Gill Clay, and Miss Kansas, Theresa Vail. These are just a few sneak peaks that are available to those attending. For more information and to register for this event, go to the Heart of America’s website. ~Kim Legg

In This Issue: Scouting 500

1

Working with Youth/Adults

2

See Our Venturing - Trainings 2 High Adventure Bases

2

Area 1-3 Reports

3

Area 4-7 Reports

4

Sea Scout Update

5

Area Pages

6

President’s Corner

7

Venturing Oath: As a Venturer, I promise to do my duty to God and to help strengthen America. To help others, and to seek truth, fairness, and adventure in our world.

How To: Work with Adults/Youth One of the coolest things about the Venturing program is how the leadership within crews is structured. Crews heavily encourage youth leadership, where adults and youth work together to make sure that crew events and other crew business gets completed successfully.

Youth and advisors working cooperatively can occasionally be tricky.

However, the most important thing a person can do to foster a positive working relationship is to have an open line of communication and to encourage mutual respect.

Something many crews have done in the past is work with their advisors to identify problems within the working relationship and figure out solutions. This also helps identify strong points in the relationship as well.

They did this by separating the crew into two groups: the youth and the adults. Each group filled in these three blanks: 1.Venturing to me means_________.

2.I don’t like it when the (advisors/youth)_________.

3.I love it when the (advisors/youth)___________.

The groups can then meet up and discuss the answers they each recorded. This sort of exercise can assist a crew in opening up communication between adults and youth and can help a crew identify problems and find solutions to issues they may not have even realized existed!

No matter how you and your crew manage advisor/youth cooperation, remember that you are all working together for the same goal: the best possible crew. ~Dagny Gargas

See Our Venturing—Trainings Have you ever wanted the opportunity to enhance your leadership skills? Have you ever wanted to attend a leadership training course while at sea? Have you ever just wondered what types of trainings Venturers and Advisors can take? All of this information can be found under the ‘Training’ tab on the Central Region website! The training tab provides in depth information for several key training opportunities within Venturing. In addition, there is brief information for almost every training opportunity. Whether you like a classroom setting, hands on experience, or a training that takes Venturing ‘outside of the box,’ there is a training for you! So, what is YOUR favorite training opportunity?

High Adventure Bases What is your crew doing this summer? Try attending one of the four high adventure bases owned and operated by the Boy Scouts of America! Whether your crew likes backpacking, canoeing, sailing, scuba diving, snorkeling, climbing, skate boarding, climbing, rappelling, or another activity, there is a high adventure base for you! While each high adventure base is versatile in program opportunities that they offer, each base is extremely unique. More information on each of the high adventure bases can be found below: Northern Tier Philmont Scout Ranch Sea Base Summit Bechtel Reserve

“The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and will to carry on.” ~ Walter Lippmann

Caption Contest

Last Month’s Picture:

“Zip line!!!!!!! You want to zip line too???? Join Venturing. “ ~ Caption Submitted By: Elizabeth Jackson

This Month’s Picture:

“Bean there, done that!” ~ Caption Submitted By: Cheryl Bugner

We know you can do better than this caption! Send in your caption, name, and council you are from to vp-communications@crventuring.org. If you win, your caption will be featured in next month’s newsletter and on our Facebook page. Check back next month to see who wins.

A Year in Review

Name That Camp!!

Area 1: Area 1 started off the year with their annual Area 1 Venturing Conference in November, where participants learned about Venturing awards and improving communication, among other exciting Venturing topics. Following their conference, Area 1 worked hard to promote the Council Standards of Venturing Excellence award. We then closed out the year with our Area 1 Fun Event, which was medieval themed and included activities such as noodle jousting and castle building. All in all, Area 1 had a great year full of awesome adventures!

Each edition of the Central Point will feature a photo from a Boy Scout camp in the Central Region. Can you name that camp?

This Month:

Area 2: This past year for Area 2 has been filled with lots of fun, awards, and new achievements. The fun never seemed to end at the Winter Fun Rally with participants going home with plenty of good memories. The Area 2 Conference was also a great success. There was equal representation from every district and excellent Area Venturing Leadership Awards being presented to both the Area Vice President of Administration, Erin Dunn, and President, Jasmine Dittel. With the Area events being such a success our districts are also doing well. A great example is the rebirth of Southern Shores VOA. They have full youth leadership in place and have been doing very well with communication and planning. With all of these wonderful things happening in Area 2, it is easy to say this past year will be one to remember.

Last Month:

Area 3: This year, we had a lot going on in Area 3! We began the year with our fun event, the Fall Fun Rally. With over 1300 people in attendance, we celebrated Venturing's 15th birthday in superhero style. We led trainings all day on Saturday, as well as facilitated the Friday night events. We also started our series of webinars. We set up 10 different topics to be presented over 10 months. We then took the recorded webinars and put them on our YouTube channel so that they can be viewed at any time. Area 3 VOA officers and committee members also presented a full trek at the Area 3 Program conference to Area 3 Scouters. From there, all of our energy went in to planning and running the Area 3 Venturing Conference in January 2014. Nearly 100 people were there to learn or present about topics ranging from high adventure to Sea Scouting to the changes to Venturing.

Four youth were also presented with the Area level Venturing Leadership Award.

Did You Know… 



The first Boy Scout camp in the United States was held at Silver Bay on Lake George in Upper New York State. It was supposed to be a Y.M.C.A. camp, but when it opened, all of the leaders were involved with the Boy Scouts, so it became a Scout camp.

The first National Jamboree was held in Washington D.C. in 1937.

Ingersoll Scout Reservation London Mills, Illinois Program Offerings: Astronomy, Ecology, C.O.P.E., Cycling, Hiking, Orienteering, River Canoeing, Shooting Sports, Swimming

For more information regarding camps throughout the Central Region, go to Where to Go Venturing: click here

If you would like your photo to be a “Name that Camp?” clue, please email it to Emily Mausshardt at vp-communications@crventuring.org.

Coming Soon!

Are you interested to learn more about the Central Region officers for the 2014-2015 term? Keep an eye out for a special edition of the Central Point featuring the new officers coming out on May 25th!

The link to the special edition newsletter can be found here.

June Edition of the Central Point Please welcome Brian Parro as the incoming Editor of the Central Point, as the Central Region Venturing Vice President of Communications!

Brian’s plan for the Central Point includes a publication date of the 1st of each month.

Due to monthly quota restrictions with our email system, the June edition of the Central Point will NOT be emailed to our distribution list. The newsletter can be found on the Central Region website, starting June 1st. The newsletter will also be announced on Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo Groups. We apologize for the inconvenience and we look forward to another great year with the Central Point!

A Year in Review: Continued Area 3: In March, we held our Leadership Development day, in which we taught the ILSC in an interactive environment. The ILSC was used as a pilot course for the new fourth module of the training. We made contact with all of the councils about the Council Standards of Venturing Excellence and most were able to turn in the form, allowing us to track their progress and give them the help they require. Throughout the term, we were also able to design, order, sell, and distribute Area 3 Servant Leader T-Shirts, which encouraged Venturers to show off their love for the program. Our bi-monthly newsletters were a big help in getting the word out about all of our events and activities, new opportunities, and anything that concerned our Venturers. We are continuing to revise the Area Operating Procedures.

Area 4: The Area 4 Officers have been hard at work for the past year. Since there was no Area VOA before us, we began with hardly any idea what the responsibilities of the positions we accepted were. However, since the training conference in Naperville, Illinois, we have held our own training conference, wrote Area Operating Procedures, reached out to every council we were able to contact, produced regular newsletters, held monthly conference calls, visited councils and helped them begin to form VOAs, promoted the Council Standards of Venturing Excellence and two of our councils were able to get the award, we created a unique membership plan geared towards VOA development at the council level, completed our part of the Where to Go Venturing Project, and, finally, we are held a fun event in May on the New River in West Virginia. I am so proud of how much we were able to accomplish this year and I know that the new officers for the Area will continue the progress that we have made.

Area 5: We had an excellent year between our Area Fun Event and our Area Conference.

Every fall, Area 5 holds a fun event at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City. This year was no different with a theme of Red Queen’s Court. While exploring the theme park, Venturers had to keep an eye out for zombies, turning the event into a ton of fun. Our conference took place in February, when we offered courses on a variety of topics, including COPE, NYLT, Leave No Trace, strengthening VOAs, and more! We also held a Kodiak Course Director’s Conference, and Introduction to Leadership Skills for Crews Course, and a Venturing Leader Specific Training course. The conference closed with several thrilling games of bowling. Between our conference and fun event, Area 5 had a very successful and fun year.

Area 6: Area 6 has been busy this year! We had a successful Summit, where Crews and Advisors joined together to learn about the STEM program, leadership courses offered to Venturers, effective recruiting, and more! Councils also did a great job submitting their CSVE Forms. We had one from each of our 11 councils! Planning for the fall's Taste of Venturing are currently underway, and we can't wait to see you there!

Area 7: Hey Central Region, here is a little update from Area 7! So here in Area 7 we have been able to relax a little bit recently. Two of our main goals were to execute our Extravaganza in October and our Conference in March. I am very happy to report that our Extravaganza is now the second largest Venturing fun event! As for our Conference, it is officially the largest in the Central Region, along with having a participant from each of our eleven councils, which was another goal! Now that’s not all we have been up to: we also collected a CSVE form from ten out of our eleven councils. Well that’s it for now Central Region from all of us at Area 7. Talk to you soon (:

Sea Scouting Update Sailing, boating, swimming: summer is Sea Scouts' favorite time of the year and it is soon approaching! What are your plans for the summer? Here are some of the things that have happened this spring...

In the past month, there has been a lot of buzz about the newly elected officers to serve in the 2014-2015 VOA's. If you ran but weren't selected, there are still opportunities out there for you to hold a position! There are openings in the Sea Scout Central Region and Area Flotillas. The duties and responsibilities are very similar to those in Venturing. The "Boatswain," has similar duties and responsibilities as the Venturing President, and Boatswain's Mates are similar to the Vice Presidents. If you are looking to apply, you can email me and I can send you more information about the positions and the application! Here is the link to the application.

National Sea Scout Boatswain Selected: There has been some big news in the Central Region recently. Peter Schmidt of Central Region Area 3 has been selected by the National Sea Scout Support Committee as the 2014-2015 National Sea Scout Boatswain. He is a member of Ship123 in the Abraham Lincoln Council out of Springfield, Illinois. Peter is a Quartermaster Sea Scout, an Eagle Scout, and has earned the Venturing Silver Award. He has received the Council, Area, and Regional Venturing Leadership Awards for his dedication to Scouting. He plans on attending SEAL this summer. Peter is the first National Sea Scout Boatswain from the Central Region in over ten years and will represent Sea Scouts across the United States when he begins his term of office on June 1, 2014. His term of office ends on May 31, 2015. He will report to the National Commodore and the National Director of Sea Scouts. He will serve as the liaison with the Regional Boatswains' and other youth leaders. His goals for his term cover the areas of marketing, recruitment, and communication. To see Peter's biography and for more information on his goals, you can visit here.

Upcoming Events: Central Region Rendezvous — May 16-18th, 2014, Springfield IL Sea Scout Week at Swift Base —June 22nd-29th, 2014, Farmington, MO NAYLE— June, July, August 2014, Philmont and Northern Tier

Tell Us About Your Crew!

What makes your crew the best crew out there? What have you done recently that was fun and exciting? Submit your story to and it will appear in the next edition of the Central Point!

Has your crew ever played a live version of Where’s Waldo? How about dressed up like superheroes to go bowling?

Submit a short story or even a longer one about your crew’s activities! If you have pictures, please include those, too!

Submit your Venturing event on the Central Region Website!

Go to http://crventuring.org and click on the “submit a calendar event” button on the lower left side of the page. Fill out the form, and now you will be able reach thousands of Venturers to come to your event!

Area 1

Area 2

Upcoming events:

Upcoming Events:

August 17-23rd, 2014, ArrowPower2014, Trego, WI September 5th-7th, 2014, Powderhorn, Haugen and Rhinelander, WI President: Mikaela Boston

Advisor: Chris Sandberg

May 17th-18th, 2014, 5-th Anniversary Day Hike, Gregory, MI June 14th-17th, 2014, Area 2 Whitewater Rafting Trip, Fayetteville, WV July 27th-August 2nd, 2014, Can-Am Venturing Week, Metamora, MI President: Jasmine Dittel Advisor: Jeff Geralds

Area 3

Area 4

Upcoming events:

Upcoming Events:

May 16th-18th, 2014, Central Region Rendezvous, Springfield, IL July 20th-26th, 2014, Venturing NYLT, Farmington, MO July 27th-August 2nd, 2014, NYLT-LCC, Grafton, IL Also, check out Area 3’s YouTube page! http://www.youtube.com/user/CRVenturingArea3

June 7th, 2014, 2014 Rendezvous Day, Wakeman, OH July 25th-27th, 2014, Wood Badge, Ellamore, WV July 27th-August 2nd, 2014, Sail Camp 2014, Hillsboro, OH August 1st-3rd, 2014, Powder Horn: HoOC, Wakeman, OH August 15th-17th, 2014, Wood Badge, Kensington, OH

President: Elizabeth Schneider Advisor: Bob Vogt

President: Henry Gunther

Area 5

Area 6

Upcoming Events:

Upcoming Events:

May 26th-31st, 2014, NYLT-QC, Sedan, KS June 29th-July 3rd, 2014, Venturing/Exploring Camp, Lake of the Ozarks Scout Reservation, MO July 6th-12th, 2014, Venturing Summer Camp, Sedan, KS July 27th-August 1st, 2014, Venture Quest, Saint Joseph, MO October 10th-12th, 2014, Powden Horn, Sedan, KS President: Mallory Ware

Advisor: Duane Zobrist

August 1st-3rd, 2014, Makahiki—2014, Warsaw, IN

President: Mandi Forsythe Advisor: Carla Gargas

Advisor: Julie Dalton

Area 7 Upcoming Events: June 13th-15th, 2014, Tour de Blackhawk, Monticello, WI June 15th-21st, 2014. NYLT—Three Fires Council, Rochelle, IL June 21st, 2014, Blackhawk Area Regatta, Loves Park, IL June 22nd-27th, 2014, NYLT—NWSC, Trevor, WI June 29th-July 3rd, 2014, Choose Your Adventure, Laona, WI

President: Katlin Adams Advisor: Kris Zahrobsky

President’s Corner Hey Central Region!

I cannot believe that after 11 months, this is my last President’s Corner. I could not have asked for a better year with helping to develop this region and getting to meet the amazing people of this region! Here is a small recap of the projects we have been able to complete over the past 12 months.

For the first time in about 3 years, we had all 7 of our area VOAs with a full slate of officers and each area put on both a fun event and a Venturing conference of some kind. One of our area’s had a Venturing conference with 110+ people in attendance! With the help of our VPs of Administration, our region was able to submit 45 Council Standards of Venturing Excellence (CSVE) forms. With this, we will be able to help contact the councils to give suggestions to help strengthen their VOAs. On the program side, we have been working to put together a folder with possible future Central Region fun events to hand on to the next set of officers. We are hoping to put on a region fun event in the near future! Our VPs of Communications have been doing a great job working to increase the communications in this region. Our very own Emily Mausshardt created a Facebook posting schedule to encourage more frequent posting on our Facebook groups. Along with putting a newsletter out every month, our website is being updated. We have had great years with a lot getting completed and I know that this is going to help Venturing in our region!

The past 12 months have really opened my eyes to how incredible everyone is in the region and I have loved being able to attend events around the region and visit with many of you. It’s weird to think that just 5 years ago, I was joining this program and now I am ending my term as the Central Region Venturing President!

I want to thank each one of you in the Central Region for your hard work helping out this great program! It has been an absolute blast being able to meet the Venturers and advisors of this region and being able to represent you guys over the last year. If you have suggests of how you would like to see the region become even better, feel free to email cr.venturing@scouting.org with all of your great ideas!

See you around Central Region! Stay adventurous! ~Christina Vogt

Central Region Venturing President: Christina Vogt president@crventuring.org Central Region Venturing Advisor: Keith Gehlhausen venturing-chair@crventuring.org Central Region Venturing Vice President of Communications: Emily Mausshardt vpcommunications@crventuring.org Central Region Venturing Associate Advisor for Communications: Deb Keyes communicationscoordinator@crventuring.org

About Our Organization...

Venturing is a Scouting program for male and female youth ages 13-21 that lets youth experience new activities, build leadership skills, earn awards, make new friends, and of course have fun.

The Central Region is one of four regions of the Boy Scouts of America. This region includes the states of: Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and West Virginia.